Mind Shift
by Crescentium
Summary: Schuldig wants to acquire a piece of the Oracle. Even just to borrow.


**Author's Notes:** This story is not exactly placed, no detailed background, but should be assumed to occur somewhere within canon. Written for a friend's prompt.

Warning: contains mature (sexual) content.

* * *

><p>He wasn't actually supposed to be there.<p>

He knew what was waiting upstairs, he'd checked the order from the receptionist's mind. He was tempted to tamper with it, but the precog might find out. Instead, he'd watched through the receptionist's eyes as the suit disappear into the dining section, his hand loosely about her waist. He didn't need to be a precog to know how Crawford was planning on persuading her. She was pretty ― the Oracle would no doubt enjoy this mission.

Schuldig planned to enjoy it, too.

It wasn't hard to acquire the room. He settled on the bed. He waited. Crawford came up the stairs and down the hall with the woman who wasn't even drunk. Confident son of a bitch, wasn't he? Still, it didn't really make it any harder for the telepath.

Schuldig crept. She started smiling wider.

"After you, my dear," Crawford murmured and opened the door, his hand clinging on her shoulder just those two seconds longer than was necessary. It was all business, but he was playing it well. It was the Oracle Schuldig knew, in a form he'd never seen before.

She went in with a laugh and that feminine dip of the shoulder, like she was embarrassed that he was touching her like that, but really, she was asking for more. "Oh, Mr Crawford," she was saying, her eyes lingering on the sharp angles of his suit. "I don't think I've ever had this much fun."

Such empty words.

Crawford slipped in and Schuldig took notice of the exact shape of his chest as the precog discreetly closed the door behind him. Schuldig focused on that way his suit crinkled up and the folds tightened, just that way over his muscles. She was watching, too, but the bitch looked up too soon, she wanted to see his _face_.

"I'm glad." Crawford looked away, toward the easy chairs and the wine. He was wearing one of those smiles. "Come, I ordered us some wine."

Schuldig was definitely not doing this for the sake of the conversation.

He kept his hand right at her elbow, just there with two fingers barely brushing her arm. Schuldig's hand trailed the touch on his own arm, recalling the way Crawford's knuckles had travelled very close, reminiscent but very different, not ten hours ago, during the mission briefing. For a moment he allowed himself believe that the man had baited him like he was now baiting her. He licked his lips, she moved her hand back, to seek more, and Crawford's fingers spread to cup her elbow. It was more than Schuldig had ever felt.

He took her to the wine and poured two glasses, she sat like a doll with a pretty smile while he stood, suit and all, perfect form, well executed smile as he offered the wine, the red liquid gently swaying in the glass upon the cradle of his palm and fingers. Flushed, she accepted it and wouldn't take her eyes off him.

She wouldn't, he'd make sure of it.

She was smiling. He brought the glass to his lips, but he wasn't looking, he was never looking. She noticed the cut of his suit, just there near the hip, Schuldig knew the tailor had measured it exactly, drawing the length of the tape round his waist while he held his arms up, inch by inch, he wanted that image in slow motion.

She drank too fast, the slut.

He sat on the same chair as her, on the arm rest, wine in one hand, the other arm winding round her shoulders, casually like he didn't mean it. It was always unintentional, even when it wasn't. His hand brushed over her arm in that detached way of his while she leaned against his suit. His suit. Whenever Schuldig touched Crawford, it was always the suit, never that which lurked underneath it.

Schuldig wanted more.

Crawford's hand travelled from her arm down her side to her waist. His lips lowered to her ear. He didn't speak. His mouth traced the curve of her earlobe and his breathing was warm, very warm. Schuldig drew the shape of her ear with his fingers.

"Mr Crawford..." she breathed like a female breathes, but when her lips opened against his and she rose up toward his body, chest to chest, yes, then, it was a male push of the hips against the cushions.

Schuldig was gripping a pillow.

"Hmm," Crawford murmured, his arm cradling her waist. She clung onto him as he stood and let his lips brush over hers, briefly, then he turned again. The American leaned over to place the wine glass on the table.

Her head followed the motion of his and she was giddy inside. For her nerves, she wanted to sip again, but Crawford's fingers appeared on the edges of her glass. Slowly, her eyes travelled up and into his eyes. Those that whispered of tomorrow.

He lowered the glass and held her waist against his hip, so easily. She let him take the wine, because it gave her the opportunity to touch that fold of his coat, where the creases built as he leaned down for the second time. On top of his chest, his position left ample room for her fingers to slip in under the coat and on top of the shirt.

For a fleeting moment, Schuldig felt the strength of his muscles under her fingertips through the thin dress shirt.

But Crawford allowed the intrusion only while he placed the glass on the table. When he straightened his back again, her hand was trapped within the falling fold of his coat. He brought his hand up and pressed it against her arm, which was resting on his chest, reaching toward his shoulder underneath the coat. He turned his eyes toward her, with that kind of a _look_.

Schuldig threw the pillow against the bed, pressing it down hard with his forearm, trying to pin the enemy down.

She held onto his coat and thrust her body against him, he backed away, away, away, to the bed.

Schuldig was hungry.

Crawford sat and lay on the bed and allowed her to mount him. She climbed on top of his suit, the fucking suit. She grabbed the front of his coat, undid his buttons, feverishly until she could slip her hands underneath it and grab his shirt. But there was no friction, no heat in response, Crawford lay impervious to Schuldig's push.

Schuldig bared his teeth as he pressed the pillow down and sank his face into it, it was so fucking soft.

Quite unlike the hard chest which she devoured with her lips. She tasted his shirt, Schuldig tasted the pillow, but they became one and the same, except that she had the rock-hard muscle and Schuldig had only cotton.

Crawford grabbed her neck, swung her round on her back and rolled on top of her, pushed her down on the bed and the Oracle was on the move, lethal and accurate. He anticipated her hand, slammed it down, anticipated her foot, pinned it down, supported his weight with one knee only while she squirmed and pulled his shirt, wanting him to follow. He did, with a purpose.

Schuldig rolled on his back and pulled the pillow against him with one hand, mimicking the way she grasped at his clothes.

_Crawford..._ he actually wanted to say it, but it would have given him away. He forced her hips toward him instead, she needed to plead in his stead, because as long as it was her, it was all free, no consequences.

Lips connected.

Crawford's mouth was that place in the world where light forgot its existence. It tasted of space that has no flavour, but you'd never forget it. It was that place which was forbidden to the likes of a telepath whose world ended and begun in the space that lingered between their breaths that never met.

There was something to be said of first kisses in that thing that people called time, but this was neither the first nor the last, it was everything in between, and for just that one suspended second Schuldig thought he could understand about tomorrow.

Crawford pulled his head back and looked down upon his prey, Schuldig lay in wait, willing to be hunted. The precognitive let go and his hands hung on the folds of the suit, pulling slowly, he could have been a porn star, the way he moved. Coat fell to reveal an angular shape that had Schuldig purring low and eager. The Oracle stared, stared, stared, one hand loosening the tie, the other wandering sensually down the row of buttons to reveal a sliver of skin.

Yes.

Schuldig rose up to meet the bare muscle. Crawford permitted it, his hands lowered to his belt.

Yes.

Schuldig followed on his knees to the edge of the bed while Crawford stood to let his trousers drop. The Oracle was naked and divine before him, like he'd never been before. Schuldig was not allowed to own this, it was forbidden, it was a sin. It was a beautiful sin.

Crawford came to the bed and his hands cupped Schuldig's face. Schuldig climbed up that beautiful sin to the shoulders until he was up to his neck in whatever this was and he opened his mouth to meet Crawford's again. Their breaths touched and warmed each other's faces, anticipation built toward the second kiss.

Yes.

Schuldig buried his face into the pillow, but he'd never learn about tomorrows. Crawford threw him back, down, Schuldig felt the panties pulled away and then the Oracle was _right there_. There.

There.

Yes.

Crawford became that place in the world where time didn't matter.

It was a strange silence, one that was made up of various noises of the flesh and of the sheets and of the bed. Smack, shuffle, squeak. Schuldig devoured the pillow with his lips. Breathe, breathe, breathe.

Breathe.

Schuldig hissed and squeezed hard, though he wasn't quite sure of what he was squeezing. Crawford thrust inside him and it felt a little unnatural and a lot better, particularly when he stuffed the pillow in between his legs and groped for his appendage in the midst of all the cotton.

Crawford was so very close, very deep, very much... _there_.

There.

Schuldig clung to her mind, supported it, carried it as if he was holding weightless water in his hands. She was still, now, quiet because she wasn't really there. The telepath was in perfect sync with Crawford, whose breath was a sharp inhale when Schuldig moved his hips just, just ― _just so_. Schuldig felt infinite satisfaction that for once, he was able to understand about time and timing. The Oracle would have been proud.

Crawford looked at her. Schuldig could just about believe that he looked right through and past her. At him.

Fearing he'd been caught, Schuldig lay absolutely, completely still like you did when you wanted to hide and you hoped they wouldn't catch you if you didn't move. Of course, you didn't hide from the Oracle. The Oracle always found you. He always saw you.

Did he see Schuldig now?

But the fingers in his hair were not really there, they were somewhere in _hers_. Schuldig's legs were locked around a pillow, not around a precognitive. He stared at the roof, not at the brown eyes above her.

Crawford drove his hips up. Schuldig's eyes closed and he squeezed the pillow.

Up, up, up, into her. Into him. He eased into the rhythm.

Part of him wished Crawford would have called his name. Schuldig. Guilty.

Guilty.

Because he wanted to name this, he wanted to own this. Like a guilty man owns his sins.

Crawford would never understand, he only heard a name that had a meaning. Schuldig heard a meaning that was a name.

He pressed his cheek against Crawford's shoulder, something he could never do, would never do. Mutely he called his own name, again and again. Crawford made it feel pure and filthy, showed him shame and mercy. He was lost in his desolate, delirious, delicious sin.

Merciless, merciless, merciless. Breathe into the pillow. Schuldig. He who owned all of that which people were, all except this.

Time was running out, Schuldig didn't need to be the Oracle to know it. He struggled, held on, just to have it last longer... longer. But his time was up. Schuldig spent his lust into the folds of the pillow, she convulsed, Crawford ― not a brow twitched.

The way Crawford started to pull away afterward was discreet, of course, and a little bit gentle, as much as a knife could be gentle when leaving the wound. Schuldig fell back into reality like rock through water, reduced resistance softening the blow when he hit the bottom.

It hadn't been enough.

Schuldig didn't care to listen to the lies he'd tell her. He didn't want to watch Crawford put on a layer after layer of suit like armour. He eased her mind toward darkness and the connection died away. She would sleep, now. The Oracle would leave, soon. Tomorrow, she would remember only that which she needed to, to be available for Crawford to use. The precog would never know the difference.

Or Schuldig could wait until Crawford left and make sure she never woke up. Just to stir things up.

He contemplated the pros and cons of this option in the silence of his own bed, the pillow in between his thighs, nightly murmurs of the hotel wandering through his mind like passers-by in a crowded room, bumping into each other, whispering of tomorrows they'd never keep. Just like Schuldig, but none alike.

Then one mind walked right up into the middle of the crowd and stood on a pedestal, right outside his door. The touch was brief and all business.

_You will clean up after yourself, of course._

Schuldig froze. No. But there was no mistaking it. He threw the pillow from his hands and clambered up, hastily grabbed his trousers, hopped on one foot part of the way while trying to get them on, gave up and finally managed all the way to the door, which was where he stopped, his hand on the knob. The mind had floated away and was gaining distance.

Crawford.

He realised that that name had a meaning too.


End file.
